10/12/24

We left the hotel in Davenport, FL at 7:45 a.m., stopped at Starbucks and headed to Anna Maria Island.  We passed a lot of electrical/power lineman from various states: Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee and New York.  We also passed trucks carrying huge generators and potable water.  As we drove from the center of the state to the west coast we saw shredded billboards, trees down, plastic white fencing tossed around, anything aluminum obliterated.  It got worse and worse as we headed to our home. 

One thing very unusual for me was that today I developed a sense of road rage.  It’s usually Scott that gets irritated but today it was me.  People were driving way too slow in the left lane.  I mean really, going the speed limit or less.  Didn’t they learn the left lane was for passing.  I really got aggravated and even blinked my lights at someone repeatedly, and alas, they did not move.  So around them I went.

Truck weigh stations along Interstate 4 were closed, they were being used as staging areas for the many linemen that are here.  It gave me a lot of hope. 

It did not take us very long to get on the island.  Police from Port St. Joe (up in the panhandle of Florida) were manning the checkpoint.  Since we had our re-entry tag, they waved us right in.  

Driving the few short miles to our home from the checkpoint was depressing.  The debris from Hurricane Helene was never picked up and is still lining the streets.  The debris is massive, for the one-story homes it’s their entire contents.  You see stoves, refrigerators, washers and dryers, beds, furniture, books, pictures, you name it, it’s on the street. With Hurricane Milton we were very luck not to get much storm surge but there was clearly wind damage and some homes suffered worse than others.  We saw a variety of roofs in different conditions, from totally missing, to missing just a bit. 

The island is very quiet, not too many people have arrived yet.  I suspect that is because we don’t have power.  Water and sewer have been established and we are under a boil order.  Kind of hard to boil water when you have no power.  Did I mention previously that our generator was flooded out with Helene? 

When we arrived at our home, we did a walk around to see how things looked.  We have lost some soffit.  We also we have one broken screen door, and we have several trees in the back yard that are down.  Our palm trees, and we have many, all made it, but they look very battered, one even lost all its leaves, I do hope it comes back.  We have red and black mangroves along the canal behind our home, a few had broken limbs but what was amazing were the number of leaves off these mangroves that are gone.  Envision a few inches of slow and replace that with 2”x1” green leaves.  Sadly, all our Mexican petunias and wax mallow are gone.  And it’s my hope that the Virginia creeper is dead as a doornail.

We had a paddleboard that was tied down on our dock in the water, we rescued it.  And our double kayak was still tied down but had been tossed around a bit, we straightened it out. 

We cleaned our entire second floor back porch.  We had taken everything but the furniture inside before the storm.  I swept and swept, wiped down and then wiped down again.  We got everything back in its proper place and it feels great . . .  some normalcy! 

We got settled and then went back into Bradenton.  We had to FedEx some documents for Scotts Jeep and Porsche to our insurance company.  They have officially totaled both vehicles.  They have rescheduled the appointment to see the other three vehicles to 10/21.

We stopped by the grocery store for supplies as we plan on staying here without power.  When we were checking out, we told them we needed to get some ice and to our dismay they said they were out of ice.  Panic!!!  We checked at a CVS, no ice.  We stopped at a gas station, even though they didn’t have gas they were open, no ice.  We then called the grocery store on the island because we had seen an Instagram post that they were open.  Yes, they have ice!  But . . .. we didn’t need to stop and get the ice because the National Guard have a Point of Distribution, near us.  We pulled in and they were so nice.  They had free water, ice, meals ready to eat (MREs), tarps, dog food and cat food.  They were so happy to help us.  We got some ice and water. 

Dinner tonight consisted of chicken salad, chicken from a can, served on a bun with lettuce.  We also had apple slices, a mandarin orange, cherry tomatoes and choice of chips.  We’ll have protein bars in the morning for breakfast.  There will be free lunch at several locations tomorrow, my plan is to go pick something up. 

We took a short bike ride after dinner as the Sheriff wouldn’t let us go past a certain point due to downed power lines and debris, he said there were even houses in the streets.  We saw a few people on our ride, they, like us are weary.

Florida Power and Light’s app indicates we’ll have power by Wednesday at 11:45 p.m., earlier today it indicated Thursday so... PROGRESS!!  For now, we are going to stay put and “camp” here at our home.  The weather has gotten cooler so that is a blessing.